Picatinny rails, also known as MIL-STD-1913 rails, are commonly mounted upon a tactical rifle to serve as an auxiliary component fastener. Picatinny rails functionally serve as a standardized mounting platform which commonly consists of a longitudinally extending (with respect to the longitudinal extension of a gun barrel) series of laterally oblongated ridges or “T” arms. To enhance their capacity for locking engagements with various types of mounting brackets, such ridges are commonly separated by multiple transverse slots or channels.
Known Picatinny rail assemblies are designed to mount heavy gun sights of various kinds. A great variety of other accessories or auxiliary components, such as laser illuminators, night vision devices, gun sling mounts, electro-optical image intensifiers, hand grips, video cameras, and bipod muzzle supports are also known to be mounted upon a firearm via an attached Picatinny rail.
A drawback or disadvantage of known Picatinny rail assemblies arises from the fact that their laterally extending ridges or “T” arms typically restrict the mounted orientation of an attached auxiliary component. Since a conventional Picatinny rail presents only two laterally opposing surfaces (e.g., the rail's left and right “T” arms) which may be grasped in the manner of a caliper engagement, auxiliary components which are upon a conventional Picatinny rail may be oriented in only two directions which are 180° removed from each other. Such component orientation restriction is acceptable for auxiliary firearm components whose function is closely related to the longitudinal or forward firing direction of the weapon. For example, auxiliary gun sights are always compatibly mounted upon a conventional Picatinny rail which is mounted upon and extends longitudinally along the firearm's barrel or breech. However, other auxiliary components such as gun slings and their clip mounts and video cameras not necessarily oriented in accordance with the longitudinal sight line or firing direction of the weapon. For such auxiliary components, the 180° orientation restrictions imposed by conventional Picatinny rails are often undesirable and are unduly restrictive.
The instant inventive Picatinny rail segment solves or ameliorates the above described problems, defects, and deficiencies of conventional Picatinny rails, by specially configuring a Picatinny rail segment to present additional and specially oriented V arm components.